The Waltz that never happened
by AnadoraBlack
Summary: "Alright, put your hand on my shoulder." "Your what?" "Oh for God's sake, Jack, just do as I say!" Or what happens when the artefact the team is supposed to bring back to base belonged to a race that enjoyed dancing. [No slash.] [Written for MoparGirl1. Enjoy!]


_A/N: Hello people! Sooooo, some might want to know what on EARTH I smoked to come up with this story. Well, first of all, my good friend and pen-pal and overall awesome fellow writer **MoparGirl1** ordered me to write a story about Daniel Jackson, whatever I please. She started watching SG-1 recently, and of course, our dear Doctor is her favourite. I mean of course._

_Initially, I planned to have something about Vala uploaded, because I ship her and Daniel so hard, obviously. But then I was listening to Nickelback's amazing song Satellite, and I rewatched Indiana Jones: Last Crusade and...well, this kind of happened. XD_

_I apologize for any fits of laughter that might occur while reading. Same goes for any cringing. I am not to blame. :P_

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**_Disclaimer: I do not own either Daniel Jackson or Jack O'Neill, or any other character from Stargate SG-1 mentioned herein. I only own the plot of this story, written purely for entertainment._**

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_**The Waltz that never happened**_

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_Marloon, planet almost entirely covered by water_

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The whole mission should have taken an hour or two maximum. Pass through the Gate, grab the artefact and go back. Easy.

Except, of course, nothing actually _was_ ever easy when it came to Jack's team. Something always had to go wrong. And that day was no exception.

He had sent Carter and Teal'c watch the Gate while he and Jackson tried to reach the artefact, which stood on a pedestal at the end of a huge and apparently deadly hall. A few skeletons lay at various distances of the pedestal, and obviously, the good Doctor had deemed it too dangerous to go barging in.

"Found anything yet?" O'Neill asked after a good ten minutes. Patience was never one of his virtues, especially when it came to a day where he could have been fishing at home.

Jackson pushed his spectacles back onto his nose and made a grimace. That was never good. "I might have. These runes are a bit more primitive than what I'm used to, but they aren't very far from the Tok'ra dialect I've studied-"

"English, Daniel," O'Neill sighed.

The archaeologist sighed too and pointed at the bas-relief he'd been studying for the past eternity. "I managed to decipher some of it. Apparently, the people that lived on this world about six thousand years ago were fond of…well…music."

"And?"

"And it appears that, to cross the room without getting killed, one must…dance."

Jack narrowed his eyes. He didn't like where this seemed to be going. "Shall I call for Carter?"

"No time," the blue-eyed man said as he stood straighter. "Besides, the Stargate is too far to call for her now. No, Colonel," he turned to his superior with a half-amused half-worried gaze, "I'm afraid this is something we'll have to accomplish ourselves."

O'Neill snorted. "No way in Hell, Doctor."

"Jack, come on…" And here the nerd-mode had been activated, "It's a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get an artefact that could perhaps be dated further than anything we've encountered so far. You know I've read it count date even further back than the Ancients, and it-"

"Could change the perspective we have on those who came before us, blah blah, yes, I've heard it before, but no."

"Fine. Then we can only go back to Star-Command and explain why we have failed the mission."

"You wouldn't dare, Jackson."

"I would. Colonel."

After a good minute of a stare-down between the two, Jack finally threw his hands into the air before putting his gun and cap on the dusty floor of the old temple. Jackson was already looking far too excited for his own good.

"So, we just dance anything?"

"No," Daniel said, grimacing again. "It appears that the dancers must move around the room as one unit. And according to those runes, the beat seems to be quite similar to…a waltz."

"A waltz," Jack repeated. "I can't dance the waltz."

"You can't?" Daniel's blue eye widened. The bastard was genuinely surprised.

It made his superior huff. "Do I strike you as someone who can dance the bleeding waltz, Jackson?"

"What do I know?" Then, as a proper nerd more interested in getting his dusty toy than caring about his officer's issues, he got closer and closer still. "Alright, put your hand on my shoulder."

"Your _what_?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Oh for God's sake, Jack, just do as I say!"

So he did. And he hated the position it suddenly put him in. With his team's archaeologist having his own arm around his waist and holding his right hand, he felt like the most pathetic military man in the History of the U.S. military.

And Daniel just promptly started to move them around the room in a beat of three, which he counted in a murmur. First they moved out of range of the deathly traps scattered around the room, then, slowly, they got closer to their aim: that blasted artefact.

"One two three, one two three…" counted Daniel even as some part of the floor collapsed, revealing pikes underneath. A few feet further, a good half-dozen lances shot from the wall, narrowly missing them because they had moved to the beat.

"It's working," Jack whispered, almost disbelievingly. It made him almost forget what he was currently doing.

Almost.

"Shut up, I'm losing track," said the other man.

When finally they reached the other side of the room, Jack sprang away from his team-mate, half-tempted to brush his uniform off any residue of their forced dance, while Daniel, of course, had hurried to the prized object's side.

And then, that deep voice void of any emotion. "Is it customary on Earth to dance with one's officer, Daniel Jackson?"

Both men raised their heads, surprised, to say the least, to see none other than Teal'c standing just three feet away, in front of an opening in the wall that hadn't been there three minutes ago.

"Where the _Hell_ have you come from?" asked Jack, deciding to ignore the Jaffa's question.

"The back of this construction seems to have collapsed quite a while back. When I noticed I went to investigate."

"Of course you did."

Jackson shot O'Neill an amused glance before Teal'c exited the room by the same way he'd come in, waiting for his companions to join him.

The Colonel found it imperative to tell the bespectacled nerd that "This never happened, understood?"

"Understood."

But it didn't stop Daniel from chuckling all the way back to the Gate.


End file.
